ELP 5Mp "Mini" Camera...

[Andrew Frazer]

I've been looking at these 5Mp cameras, and breifly discussed this with Jason online.. 

http://www.elpcctv.com/full-hd-5megapixel-af-usb-camera-module-usb20-ov5640-color-cmos-sensor-30degree-lens-p-218.html

http://www.elpcctv.com/mini-5mp-af-usb-camera-module-ov5640-color-cmos-sensor-p-234.html

The difference between these two devices is (a) the size of the pcb, ( one is 38x38  and one is 32x25 ), and (b) one is 30 degrees and one is 60 degrees.  They both have identical sensors..

The smaller pcb has some definite advantages for a down facing camera, as being physically smaller it will be easier to mount, especially since id eventually like to put two cameras 

I hope to talk to the ELP people today, but i am curious if anyone know if the lenses is included in this module as shown, or if the lense is a "clip on" the front of this..  It appears there are mounting holes on the front of this for what could be a lenses.. But i'm just not sure..

Does anyone know?

[Jason von Nieda]

The lenses of these two cameras are included. They are autofocus lenses, so the module you see incorporates the lens and the autofocus mechanism. The holes you see are for a M12 lens mount. ELP uses the same camera board for several different lens mounting options. So, you can get the same camera board with a M12 lens mount instead of the autofocus lens. In the case of the autofocus ones the holes are extraneous.

Jason

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[Andrew Frazer]

Ahh thanks for that.. Hopefully they can do the mini board with a 30 degrees module.     You never can tell with what is listed on Aliexpress etc..   However the

[Mark Harris]

The sensor isnt all there is to the equation - there is also the processing chip/USB conversion chip (sometimes all in one, sometimes separate). These can greatly change the image quality from the same sensor.

I'd recommend something with a M12 or CS mount lens holder, the little spy camera style pinhole lenses are not very high res. You can buy megapixel M12 and CS mount lenses which will perform a great deal better!

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[Andrew Frazer]

Got a make and model.

These are auto focusing.

[Robert Walter]

I think for a downlooking camera these small autofocus cameras would be ideal. Much easier to get them into tight places, and they don't quite need to be super high res for capturing fiducials and locating parts on the board. Maybe not the best for OpenPNP's vision assisted strip feeders, but may be adequate. Nice thing is with the autofocus, taller parts like caps, etc would remain in focus when placed in loose parts trays. So benefits may outweigh the drawbacks.

[Jason von Nieda]

Robert,

The autofocus cameras are interesting from the perspective that you can control the focus electronically, but not so much in auto mode. You can't really trust the camera to make the right decision on what to focus on, but OpenPnP can make that decision for it. OpenPnP already knows the distance from the camera to the things it's looking at (usually) so it can set the focus correctly. That's the idea, at least. It's not been tested yet :)

Jason

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[Robert Walter]

Jason.

You are 100% correct. I wasn't gonna head down that path, as it always tends to spur more discussion than necessary, but it didn't even dawn on me that these little cameras would expose the focus via the USB driver . It would be awesome if that were a possibility.

Every time I have used vision in the industrial arena, A/F was a absolute NO NO. You just don't do it. Too slow / inconsistent result. So I always tend to design with keeping the parts in focus from a mechanical point of view. In the case of a PNP, strip feeders and auto feeders can easily be designed to keep all component tops at a constant Z. Loose part trays and vib feeders are the opposite by nature. So it becomes a trade off. Most of the commercial implementations that I have seen have camera's that move on a separate Z axis to control focal point.

Personally, for down looking cameras, having control of focus depth would be amazing if it were easily controlled via the driver / openPNP. It just really opens up new possibilities for sorting / identifying loose parts that happen to have variable component heights.

[Jason von Nieda]

Robert,

I have personally tested the ELP AF cameras focal distance to be controllable over USB. It requires calls to a UVC library and I've begun development of a driver that can do this. It's mostly working but very crashy at the moment, and needs some work done to finish building all the required artifacts for each platform. This code is at:

https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/tree/feature/uvc-camera for the OpenPnP Camera driver and

https://github.com/openpnp/libuvc4j for the libuvc bindings.

The OpenPnP camera system was designed from the start to support focal distance changes either by moving the camera in Z or by adjusting the focal length. The Z option is simple and obvious. For the focal distance option this would be implemented by the Camera class watching the Z position and setting the focal distance to that multiplied by some modifier, or by using a lookup table.

With this all being said, so far I have not found fixed focus on the top camera to be much of a burden, as long as everything on the table is kept within about 10mm. All of the vision algorithms are built with a little bit of compliance in their sizes to handle this. I do think, though, that as we get into more advanced things like random, loose, part picking this will become more of a concern.

Jason

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[Jason von Nieda]

Hey folks, one quick note on these ELP cameras. I just got one of the 5MP 60 degree AF ones and it reminded me: As delivered, the board has a little silver sticker on the back with the model information. This sticker is conductive and I am pretty sure it was the cause of death of my previous camera. I suggest removing it before using the camera.

Jason

[Andrew Frazer]

Owwwh. Thanks for the heads up.

[Daniel Dumitru]

On a pevious post on I don't know what thread was mentioned camera used on those Chinese machines.  

Was a bit pricey but maybe performances are compensating for those.   

I will try to look again over that link even I am kind of reluctant using chinese camera due to lack of documentation ...

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[Glen English]

Actually might not need to worry too much about focus.. well not as much

I was messing with my Pt Grey camera last night and doh. .......

no need for my two stereo cameras, I can just move one. and then I can get depoth info and also fix focus, so I went googling and yep, google have done it in android....

see the google link in my blog post

http://glenenglish.com/2016/05/09/pnp-on-stereo-imaging-and-more-focus